Make and unmake the rhythm of your life
When to sleep and when to eat, when to fall in love and when to grieve, when to bleed. What is time but desire moving through Space?ancient meat-time proverb
Clocks were the first step in the temporal data-driven organization of human life. The clock tower in the village, the mechanized heart we all pray to. Now each of your search terms and clicks are recorded neatly with a timestamp in UNIX Epoch time, which has been running continuously since 1970. My birth time is 677377558, what is yours? The datamine machine knows your whens and wheres and splits you into smaller and smaller pieces of neatness, until the You becomes all but invisible again, like a magic eye image, which without unfocusing is just a random composite of meaningless data junk. One might lose the gestalt without a carefully defocused Silberblick (German, trans.: “silver view”, the crossing of the eyes).
You sprawl limbs out on the late spring soar of fresh growth and breathe the imaginary-flower-pollen-laden air and delight in ambient plant sex. Can you tell which one is in bloom now? June bugs dig their way out of the soil after existing underground for years. How do they know when the right time to emerge is? It’s time to procreate and if it’s not yours, it’s nice to know that it is someone or something else’s. We are no different after all. The imaginary flowers, the bugs and you, that is.
Why is it called the temporal lobe, you ask yourself while you stare out into window-sky. Do you know how long each of the inexactitudes of your breaths are, the little death in between them? What is the opposite of a second? Have you been at this part of your life before? You miss your meeting, wax from your grease candle overflows and runs down the table. You had something better to do. Your observed now-identity is melting into a discreet indiscrete void. Why is it that a K-Hole feels like a Forever each time? (Answer: Because there is no desire without the body).
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UR KAOS UHR is a web-based work by Chloê Langford (Fantasia Malware).
The dashboard presents seven whirling clock-like mechanisms, each revealing a different ambient approach to the liquid rhythms and self-storytelling that make up organic aliveness. UR KAOS UHR exists in a temporary time-zone where sensations flow freely, our desires de-coupled from the self-referential surveillance machine.
Made by Chloê Langford (Fantasia Malware).
Sound by Zane Hettinga.
Essay by Merle Leufgen.
Published by Fantasia Malware.
Made during a residency (Dec '21 to Feb '22) at 0xSalon & Trust. Thank you for your support.
Adapted quotations from "Hares on the Mountain" (folk song), "Behind Me - dips Eternity" (Emily Dickinson), "I felt a cleaving in my mind" (Emily Dickinson).
Font Minipax by Raphaël Ronot, Velvetyne Type Foundry.
Thank you to Ashlie, Elias, Gabriel, Jira, Lukas, Maya, Merle and Zane for inspiration, encouragement, suggestions and help.